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Bchow509's avatar
Bchow509
Copper Contributor
Sep 14, 2023

Is there a function in Project Online that replicates Master project and subprojects features?

I believe Project Desktop has a feature that allows you to have a master project and sub-projects. I'm looking to replicate the same thing on Project Online (the app that files only saves on SharePoint) and don't know how. Can someone point me to the right direction on how to have a master project that includes sub projects or it's not possible? Thank you! 

6 Replies

  • Kelvin_Kirby's avatar
    Kelvin_Kirby
    Iron Contributor
    This is still supported in Project Online (you can publish a Master project for example) BUT you may not want to use it. The reason being that Project Online is way, way more flexible when it comes to grouping projects and opening up several projects into a single "virtual" project in Microsoft Project Desktop. For example if you want to group by programme, and there is an Enterprise custom field for Programme (linked to a lookup table), you can easily configure a Project Center view to group on Programme. Then you can select all the projects that make up your selected programme and open them all at once in the Project Desktop client. You now have a virtual project based on programme name containing all the projects in that programme. You can then set up x-project links or do reporting easily from this view, including using Visual Reports. You could also save this "virtual" project as a local mpp file (since the file oly contains "links" to the actual projects in Project Online. Suppose then you wanted to view all projects grouped by Customer, or location, or cost center code, or by Stakeholder, or by Project Type (EPT), or by any other attribute you wanted to assign to a project. This approach makes grouping/filtering your projects easy and straightforward and is way more functional than the old Master/Sub project approach. bear in mind too that once a project is inserted as a sub-project into a Master Project, it can't be inserted into any other Master Project. So Project Online gives you oddles more possibilities that the old Master Project/Sub project mechanism ever did. Also, if you use the old approach and publish the Master Project in Project Online you have to be careful about whether you show sub projects in the Project Center View because any numeric or cost based fields will cause the rollup value to be duplicated or triplicated - hence the ability to turn off "sub projects" in the Project Center View , but this is easily forgotten, so we don't recommend this older approach in Project Online. 🙂
    • Bchow509's avatar
      Bchow509
      Copper Contributor
      Thank you Kelvin! I've just realized I have Project for the Web App. Is there a way to link projects together on the Project for the web version?
      • Bchow509 --

        Pardon me for bumping into this conversation. If you are using Project for the Web, there is currently no way in this app to create a master project or to link tasks from one project to another project. Sorry, but hope this helps.
    • Bchow509's avatar
      Bchow509
      Copper Contributor
      Thank you for that!

      I've realized that my org uses Project for the Web App, and with that said, is there a way to link multiple projects into one?
      • Kelvin_Kirby's avatar
        Kelvin_Kirby
        Iron Contributor
        Unfortunately this is not built in functionality with Project for the Web. You can use the Roadmap feature but sadly this doesn't provide (at present anyway) anywhere near the same functionality as Project Online.

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